I am a stained glass artist, in addition to being a homeschooling mom. It's been my hobby for over a decade, and I started my own business last January. If you'd like to know more about my art, check out my blog, A Glimpse of Grace. The reason I mention it today is that my family just returned from a two-week vacation, and we interacted with lots of art because of my own interest in it.

Joy, like most children, mimics those around her. When I set up my glass studio, I added a section for her and set up a painting studio. She and her friends LOVE the studio. They paint, mix paints, and generally make a mess... but it is art. No doubt about it. Joy takes her art very seriously sometimes, and I often use her artwork (with her permission, of course) to wrap my glass pieces in when I sell them. I "sell" her artwork with mine, and Joy is ecstatic!

Back to our grand homeschool field trip/vacation... We purposefully visited many sites with architectural art, painting, sculpture, stained glass, and other visual art. We know Joy loves art and being an artist, and we knew that she would love this part of our trip. It was easy to do this; it didn't even take much planning. Everywhere we went, we looked for art!

You could easily incorporate such a purposeful topic into any vacation, or even a trip downtown. It doesn't have to be art; that's just one of Joy's interests. (In later posts, I'll share how we included some kindergarten learning that wasn't based on Joy's interests.)

We especially looked for art that Joy could TOUCH and MANIPULATE, art that provoked thought, that wasn't a literal representation of an object. For example, the sculpture on the right is representative of people playing music, but there are no musical instruments visible. The people are "ripped open," as Joy called it. Why?  The artist's answer isn't the important one; Joy's answer is. This is critical thinking! We didn't tell her the people were musicians, but she knew. When I asked her how she knew, she said, "This one is playing drums, and they all look like they're dancing." True.

We lucked into finding a sculpture trail that you should visit if you're ever near Feshiebridge, Scotland. You can read more about it here. Joy adored touching the stone and wood sculptures; this was no art museum! We had in depth conversation regarding the meanings of the art. Since there are signs telling bits about the author's purpose and meaning, we read those and discussed whether he accomplished his purpose in his art. Deep stuff for a five-year-old, but she loved it! She had no idea that I was helping her develop her critical thinking skills. I also took photographs of each sculpture, and we will investigate them and the artist in more depth via the internet.

Joy herself found the painting to the right. It was actually an advertisement for a bank. We discussed how the artist used line drawings with realistic, almost photographic, people. She's already planning to make a drawing or painting like this.

The bottom line of all this is:
1) Start with your child's interest(s);
2) Learn enough about it to extend your child's knowledge and experiences;
3) Provide opportunities for your child to experience activities related to the topic; and
4) Be ready to use the experiences in multiple ways to extend your child's learning in many areas.

Here's an example of how I intend to utilize one set of experiences to extend Joy's learning in reading, writing, computer skills, comparing and contrasting, counting, adding and subtracting, and many more skills. In Scotland, we stayed in Newtonmore. They have painted and placed more than 130 Scottish Wildcats around their town: In windows, on roofs, in gardens, along footpaths, etc. The "game" is to find as many as you can. Joy had a great time searching for wildcats! I took her picture with each one she found, so we could...

A) Write a story about finding them using Publisher;
B) Count the total number;
C) Compare whether more were inside or outside;
D) Figure out how many we didn't find;
E) Make our own clay wildcats, paint them, and hide them around our yard and house for people to find.

And that's just the beginning. I will follow Joy's lead in creating even more activities based on the wildcats. We can learn about the real Scottish Wildcats online. We can evaluate which sites are helpful and which are not; which are reliable and which are not. We can use the map from Newtonmore to plan an adventure. And on and on...

And Joy doesn't even know we're "addressing the standards and benchmarks of the Common Core Standards for Kindergarten." And I'm glad! (And I won't test her, either!)